Since I left Government nine months ago, I have committed my political thinking to finding new and innovative ways of restoring confidence in our capacity to earn our way out of our economic difficulties.   It has been the consistent and re-occurring theme of the articles I have written here over the past 8 –

IBEC’s Danny McCoy summed up the current dilemma very neatly recently on RTE’s Primetime. Talking about such positives as continuing export growth and positive balance of payments, he found himself accused of just wanting to “get the good news out there”.   The IBEC Director General rounded on the interviewer saying: No, these are the facts.

To paraphrase Jim Callaghan (the former UK Prime Minister not the FF Dublin City Councillor) “Bad news can be half-way around the world before good news has got its boots on”.   Recent stories of Jim McDaid’s resignation and the holding of the Donegal South West by-election eclipsed reports that Government tax and spending figures

The recent Dail economic debate turned out to be more interesting than I had expected, particularly the contributions from back benchers on both sides. Whether the 3% deficit can be achieved without running the risk of deflating the economy to destruction depends almost exclusively on the level of growth in the Irish economy. If the level

Whether it was the protests in France at the increased retirement age or the announcement by the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer of the axing of almost a half a million public sector jobs, events during recent weeks reminded us that Ireland is not alone in facing tough decisions.   True: while the problems faced by